The short version is this:
- The CBC has bought the Canadian format rights to the Idol-like show "The One."
- Part of the deal involves broadcasting the American version this summer.
- That means simulcasting it, because that's what we do in this country because otherwise people just watch the US network. This way they get to get all the ad revenue, because they substitute the Canadian signal over the U.S. one on cable.
- The U.S. version will air Tuesdays at 10pm.
- 10pm is when the CBC usually airs "The National," their flagship newscast.
- So for nine Tuesdays, they're going to have to move the news an hour earlier.
- Everybody's freaking out.
Well, that part isn't so simple. The bleating involves, "moving the news for a REALITY SHOW!" The Usual Subjects are Saying all the Usual Things.
Friends of Canadian Broadcasting -- you are officially part of the PROBLEM.
Apparently the Globe & Mail -- the elite newspaper -- has received 50 letters of complaint! Zounds! Zounds! The CBC is back to quaking.
What is the big deal here?
Canada's media cabal are utterly out of touch with the Canadian Public, and always have been.
They get to turn their chardonnay-swilling noses up at reality, cluck their narrative about the CBC "dumbing down" (ie: appealing to the Canada that exists north of Steeles Avenue, West of Forest Hill, East of The DVP and below the 72nd floor of the Ivory Tower.)
But let's look at the reality, again, in short, sharp, easy to understand bullet points:
- 10 p.m. is Prime Time
- The CBC is in trouble because NO ONE IS WATCHING.
- CTV's 11 o'clock news trounces the CBC's 10 p.m. news EVERY NIGHT. (suggesting that maybe 10 p.m. ISN'T actually the best time for news on the main network.)
- The News is pre-empted for Hockey anyway, and has been for years (though the Ivory tower hates that too. Guess what, guys -- Don Cherry is a bigger CBC star than Anchor Peter Mansbridge will EVER BE.)
- Performance based reality shows like Idol are the only shows that now draw a broad audience -- because they are pretty much the one kind of show that Parents and Kids watch together.
- By choosing a show that has a little buzz, you may just be building warm fuzzy feelings for CBC Television from multiple generations. For a network with a median age that's grey haired, this is a good thing.
- In Canada, the most Heavily-Cabled nation on the planet, if you want to watch the newscast at 10pm for one of those Tuesdays, all you have to do is tune to the CBC's News Channel, CBC Newsworld.
- Let me make that point again...for 90% of Canadians, if you want to watch the news on CBC at 10 -- all you have to do is tune to the news channel.
There are many things to criticize the CBC for. This is not one of those things.
Stop being such insufferable elitist bastards!
But you know what the worst thing about this story is? It means I agree with The Toronto Sun's Bill Brioux.
I need mouthwash.
11 comments:
Why is it elitist to dislike really dumb programming? Hey, I'm a hick from the sticks and the last thing I want to see on the CBC is some over-stimulated American warbling a banal top 40 hit.
People like you are like Jerry Springer. You think dumb and vulgar is earthy and real. It isn't. It's dull.
Well, anonymous -- nice bold handle, by the way -- people like you from the sticks can like, or loathe reality program as you wish.
You can even engage in that time honored old tradition, the ad-hominem attack.
But considering the fact that several times last season, American Idol beat what was on the other networks combined, and that Canadian Idol is a top five show in this countr, even a hick from the sticks should have to admit that that type of programming is really, really popular with the audience.
And also incredibly innocuous. The world-destroying bonafides of Idol and that ilk are consierably more benign than, say, The Swan.
It IS elitist to say to the majority of Canadians, "the kind of programming you like has no place on the national broadcaster" -- especially if that broadcaster is trying to become something more than just PBS North.
A network which I love, by the way. I love PBS to death.
But it's fairly elitist.
As are you.
Nice to see there's some elitists out in the sticks, too.
Best,
Getting lost in the debate about the CBC programming some American trash television to attract viewers is the fact that the broadcaster’s “relevance” should have nothing to do with ratings. Because Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie” is a more frequent ipod download than Bach’s “B Minor” mass does not make it any more relevant. Danielle Steele is not more relevant than Alice Munro. While almost nobody has watched Kieslowski’s “The Decalogue” we can say that it has greater merit as television than “Fear Factor”. Anti-intellectuals argue this kind of thinking is elitist. Some dubious cultural theory asserted absolute “qualitative” differences did not exist and lately that same postmodern relativism has been morphed, by hucksters, into such patently absurd notions as “everything bad is good for you”. (The easy marks in the executive suites who fall for this sort of bunk are invited to drink cyanide and test that hypothesis.) It’s for the public broadcaster to make “good” television, and people that can’t easily make that distinction should be kept away from making the programming decisions.
Actually, if you go back to the Broadcast Act, and read what the mandate of the CBC actually is, your interpretation of their mandate is too narrow, and extradordinarily elitist.
You can certainly argue the point that ratings are not the best metric, but it's silly to argue that a channel that people by and large do not watch, should be able to continue going on as it has, and not try to connect with the audience.
That path leads to only one thing: cuts, more cuts, and the end of the public broadcaster altogether.
CBC was always intended to be both popular AND a public service. There is plenty of room for both.
But not to those who turn up their noses at anything they judge to be "lowbrow" or "beneath them."
Well, I will forgo anonymity and say that as a prairie-born soul now living in Ottawa, I find the Official defence of this whole decision process here behind The One as bad as stepping into one of the cowpies on the family farm.
The decision itself is another cowpie.
The real issue here is the ineptitude of CBC management. They couldve easily spun this as "we're moving to the National because we need to protect it" but instead they announce the news will be bumped by a US reality series. What CBC TV needs is a wholesale cleanout of everyone in senior management.
It's not a good idea to demean anyone for using the anonymous handle. What in hell's the point of putting the button there. So you can be rude?
William Fudger
sedum@telus.net
Let's get something straight.
"People like you are like Jerry Springer..."
When someone says something like that, they've taken the gloves off. If they choose to do it behind the cloak of anonymity, well, the force of their argument is considerably blunted.
Anonymity can be useful. It can allow you to say things that you might not always want to have attributed, for fear of professional reprisal. Perhaps you feel that, if identified, you might be compromised somehow so the choice is between furthering the discussion or you holding back. That's where anonymity is very useful.
However, on the internet, anonymity is often used to put forth any degree of nastiness for which you don't have to be held accountable. A forum where someone who chooses to retain anonymity accuses or critcizes someone whose identity backs up everything they say should not be encouraged. Not unless the point is that person is a whistleblower, and the accountable one is someone in a position of authority over the commenter. That isn't the case here; I have no power over anybody. So the merit of the argument, and the way it's made is the only issue.
Finally, anonymous views, though necessary, will always be discounted less than those that are attributed. We see this every day in journalism, where stories based on anonymous sources are forever under attack until (and sometimes after) there are on-the-record confirmations.
You may think I'm rude, but you obviously agree with the spirit of the argument I'm making. That's why you signed your name and your address. By the way, in the future if you want to make a bold point like that I'd put some easily-deletable garbage in your email string. It's my serious, sincere hope (and be clear: I mean this with no sarcasm whatever) that you don't fall prey to more spam now from one of those annoying bots that crawl web pages like this one collecting email addresses.
from the pen of william fudger
My profoundest apologies for leaving the impression that it was me who made that ridiculous comment about Jerry Springer.
It certainly made your point.
However it isn't always easy to negotiate the various comment sections and for fear of getting lost (I'm old) I thought I'd just sign in once aboard. As for it being unwise to advertise one's email address I felt no danger in doing so on your blog.
If you'd encountered six anon's in a row would you have assumed that they were all from the same author?
Of course I agree with the "spirit" of your blog and hope that my comment is reconsidered as legitimate.
Actually, I never thought you were the guy who made the first comment. But even if you were, it doesn't matter or change the tenor of any of the arguments I made in response to the first poster.
Anonymous arguments can be as valid, or as cogent as those that are fully attributed. Moreso, even.
But insults leveled by anonymous posters should be taken with the same degree of seriousness as a boy scrawling a dirty word on the wall in dead of night and then running away.
Perspective is fluid. When you're anonymous, you never have to defend yourself, and you also never have to look at further evidence and admit that maybe you had things wrong.
Both of which I do frequently, in RL or Online.
Aaaaand the show was cancelled anyway.
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